Home education in our home is a real team effort. I am incredibly blessed to live with my parents who are eager to help in our endeavours to provide our children with a varied and hands-on education.
Today was ‘business studies’ with Grandpa. This term he is doing a project about how nails are made. The children looked at an old hand-made nail and Grandpa explained how to create charcoal, which is one step in the process.
They braved the bitterly cold weather to have a go at making their own charcoal in our fire pit.
After the fun of the fire they went indoors to warm up and listened to an extract from Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransom in which there is a detailed description of charcoal burning. They then watched a video about the historical process of creating charcoal.
To finish off, the children had a go at drawing pictures with the charcoal they had made.
It is a great example of a topic or project based approach to learning in which my dad wove history, literature, science and art into one lesson. Plus there was the added bonus of getting to spend time outdoors, which is something my son in particular loves.